


Fallen Castles

by auberus, Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Sailing Down the Volga [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M, GFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auberus/pseuds/auberus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith and Spike meet Ivan Vanko in Moscow, and discover more than they intend to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen Castles

He'd been patient while in prison, falling easily into the rhythm of it, and fighting his way into a position of power in there. Inking his story into his skin, and making a name for himself that was respected and feared. As much for his vicious brutality as for his intelligence and cunning, which were a rare enough combination in the men who surrounded him.

That he's backed by Wolfram and Hart isn't something that's well known, since he'd needed to establish his credentials here on his own in order to more effectively do his job. Take out targets and recruit others to do grunt work or take the fall for the jobs he did. It's a challenge he relishes, and enjoys as he waits for the fifteen years to run out.

Once outside, he's meant to have the same sort of job, only ranging further, and drawing more people into the web of Wolfram and Hart. Employers, though, are difficult to collect from when their offices are being systematically destroyed, and it's particularly true since their branch in Moscow is gone. Not just closed its doors - something which he wouldn't expect to happen anyway - but very literally gone. All that remains, in fact, is a pile of rubble that's still smoldering in places despite the efforts to contain and quench the fire.

There are few of their enemies who have the ability to manage this, and he can really only think of one who'd bother. He's never liked the Watchers and their Council, and the destruction of the one entity who'd stood a chance against them, at least before he'd been caught selling enriched plutonium to the wrong people - a deliberate piece of work, but the authorities weren't aware of that - was a blow. Not a devastating one, as he was perfectly capable of surviving on his own, but one that he'd remember, and one he'd cherish the anger over until he could find a manner in which to take his just revenge.

* * *

Watching the rubble that had once been W&H is a thankless job and - as Spike has repeatedly complained - a boring one. Faith, thankful that her sire's attention span hadn't been part of her inheritance, though his perception had been, sets up her own watch while Spike goes off to entertain himself. Around ten, she's glad she did. None of the law firm's fixers or their upper management had tattoos like that, or that hair, more's the pity. A soft whisper pulls Spike away from what smells like drinking with the locals, and though she wrinkles her nose when he gets close, no other words are needed. They flank the man automatically, and Faith steps into the light. Thanks to her mortal life, she's faster and stronger than her sire, and hoping the man is stupid enough to run.

"Come for a last look at your employer?" she asks, then repeats it in halting Russian.

He's aware there's something in the dark - vampires, perhaps, which don't frighten him - but Ivan pretends not to notice they're flanking him, trying to trap him. He's fought stronger things than vampires, if mostly before prison, and coming out of those encounters alive and on his feet had been enough to earn him something of a reputation before prison. Aside from being a brilliant physicist, which while satisfying part of his hunger, never satisfied all of it. Certainly not the need for physical violence, even if he could subsume that for a while in tinkering with all sorts of machinery.

When the girl asks her question, he shrugs, a small smile crossing his face a moment. "Hard to collect from dead men. They owed me." More than money, but he lets her assume what she will. Vampires aren't, after all, known for their great capacity for intellect.

"They owed a lot of people," Faith says, smiling softly. "I was a Slayer before they got their hands on me. Spike had won his soul." The mention of his name brings her sire out of the darkness. The smile on his sharply handsome features doesn't bode well for their captive. "Who are you, and what did they owe you for?" She gives the man a smile of her own. "I'll know if you lie - and if I have to I'll turn you for the truth and stake you after."

"Many things." Ivan isn't interested in telling them everything, and he shifts so he can watch them both, an impassive expression on his face. "Less than Watchers Council owed me." That the girl used to be a Slayer didn't exactly impress him, but it would make a fight more interesting. He hadn't had that sort of challenge since he was little more than a boy - well, the Slayer part of it, anyway. The vampire part of things had become a bit of a habit along with demons, and that had honed the skills that made his reputation in prison.

Faith flicks a glance at Spike. Since he'd turned her, they both owe their existence to the Council's forbearance, and neither wants to irk that body unduly - though a good cause would be something else entirely. "Your name?" she asks again. "The St. Petersburg office wants to keep us sweet, after this place, and Rome, and NYC and Philadelphia, and believe it or not we still have some pull with the Council." Her smile has tricked all kinds of people into trusting her. "I'm Faith; this is Spike." Both are names to conjure with, if their captive is as knowledgeable as he seems. She's the only turned Slayer in the world, and Spike's been a legend since he took out his first Slayer before he'd been turned twenty years.

Ivan chuckles, shaking his head. He'll collect on his own, rather than trusting someone else to do so for him. Especially not a vampire, and more especially if one of those vampires is Spike. "I don't work with little girls or slayers of Slayers." They're words meant to provoke a fight, and he's not concerned with winning as much as living through it - which is a victory all it's own. "Collect my own debts from men who owe me."

The title makes Spike grin - has since he'd re-lost his soul, especially as Faith makes three, sort of. She bristles, but for once keeps her head despite her annoyance.

"You've heard of me, then" he says smirking. "Faith's one of two, or was before the Red Witch cast her mojo. One word from us, and you'll die before they pay you either at the Council or at Wolfram and Hart. The latter tends to listen to those who've knocked out as much of it as we have - even though I only turned her a month ago." Being recognized has put him in an almost benevolent mood.

"Men listen to those who can hurt them. Simple fact." Ivan shrugs, unimpressed and still unconcerned. "Pretty hard to miss. And you? Try to hurt me, I kill you." He doesn't give it any boasting tone, any bravado, just a simple statement of fact. Even though the odds are against him - they always are, with a vampire - he's still unconcerned about his chances. "Little girl? Fought with Slayer before, didn't lose then, won't lose now."

Faith hesitates briefly. Giles is going to be seriously pissed off if they kill someone he wants kept alive, and she's a lot more impressed by Giles now than she had been pre-turning. He'd taken some of the restraints off, and she'd been pleasantly surprised, not that there was more to him, but by how dangerous that more was. After a moment, she shrugs anyway, and lifts an eyebrow at Spike. "Your call. But you get to explain things to Giles if he gets cranky."

Ivan recognizes the name, though he hasn't heard it since before he let himself get caught, let himself be sent to prison for the sake of those who'd promised more than money for the deaths of those they couldn't otherwise reach. Perhaps it might be useful to tolerate the vampires for a while, rather than continuing to provoke them. Giles would be one of the few who might understand just how much the Watchers owed him.

"Tell Giles, Moscow, 1990." It's all the more that needs said, and Ivan is tempted just to walk away, if the vampires don't try to stop him - and if they do, they'll learn what some of the tattoos that had preceded prison mean. And unlike some, he hadn't bothered with mystical extras, either. No need for them when he could hold his own without, or create machinery to do the same job.

"Bugger." Spike watches him go, visibly disappointed. Then he shrugs. "We'll call in the morning. If we get the okay, we'll kill him tomorrow instead. It's not like he's hard to find." He grins at her then, Vanko temporarily dismissed. "Come on. Let's go find something to kill."

* * *

Looking at the clock, Giles shut his eyes again, contemplating letting whoever it was on the other end ring through to the answerphone for a brief moment before he reached for the phone. If they're neglecting the time-difference, he can scold them, but if it's one of the Slayers in London, it's likely an emergency which requires his attention. After the last non-emergency they'd called him for while he was sleeping, they'd learned not to.

"Are you aware it is only four in the morning in London?" he asks before whoever is on the other end can even speak.

"Which makes it six here. Time for all us creatures of the night to be getting to bed," Spike says, smirking. "Figured we'd call you first. Plus, there's nothing on telly at the moment, so I'm not missing anything by calling now."

Giles sighed, reaching for his glasses as he sat up on the edge of the bed, wincing a moment at the chill of the wooden floor. He really ought to purchase a rug to put there if he's going to deal with more than an occasional early-morning call. Or perhaps just because he's getting older and there are times when his body won't let him forget that.

"What is it, Spike?" The last he recalled, they'd been headed for Moscow to dismantle that particular branch of Wolfram and Hart, with his blessings. He had a particular piece of vendetta against that branch of the law firm, though not one he'd been inclined to share with either Spike or Faith.

"Took care of this head of the hydra for you. Been getting make-nice approaches from the Leningrad - sorry, St. Petersburg - offices. Nothing official, but it's them all right." He gives Giles the unimportant news first, knowing full well that it's an annoying habit. Faith is making a face at him from across the room, so he grins at her.

"Anything worth waking me this early?" Giles pinches the bridge of his nose above his glasses, suppressing another sigh, particularly since the idea threatened to turn into a yawn. "Or are you just wanting to provide a progress report that could wait until evening?"

"We've got plans for this evening." Spike stretches his legs out and puts his boots on the coffee table. Faith ignores him. "Some bloke you know, actually. Said his name was Vanko. He was rude, so I thought we'd teach him some manners." That makes Faith look up, scowling. Spike winks at her.

"Vanko?" Giles hasn't seen Ivan in years, though he's kept track of him - and somehow he doesn't think he'd actually tell Spike his name. He frowns darkly as he reaches for the bedside lamp, giving up on the idea of sleeping after this phone call. If he even remains in London after this, though it might not be the best idea to meet Ivan face-to-face as yet. The man has a well-deserved reputation and a vendetta against the Watchers Council which Giles doubts will be satisfied by knowing the old Council is gone.

"Did you attempt to do anything to him?" he asks sharply, pushing off his bed, and going toward the wardrobe to find trousers and a jumper. Even if he remains in London with the New Council, he'll have damage control to do. And research, since he hadn't been aware Ivan was going to be out of prison soon. "And where did you hear his name?"

Faith gets up and removes the phone from Spike's grasp before he can tell Giles that he'd turned the man, or something else designed to be irritating.

"Hey, Giles. Neither of us did anything to your friend, and Spike's just grumpy. He broke his hand trying to punch a Chaos demon earlier tonight."

"The bastard moved," Spike says sulkily, with a look that says he's already plotting revenge.

At least Faith doesn't attempt to be deliberately irritating, and Giles lets a brief smile cross his face at hearing her voice rather than Spike's. "What was the message, exactly, Faith?" He pulls out a pair of trousers as he asks the question, and sets them on the bed to put on after the call is over. Unless, of course, the message is something urgent, in which case, he'll have to make arrangements while he dresses. He rather hopes it's not urgent.

"Moscow, 1990. I don't know how Spike figured out his name, but he's pretty distinctive looking." Faith flicks a glance at Spike, who's watching her with the air of a cat in front of a mousehole. She grins at him, silently daring him to start something. "He wouldn't have given us that much, but I name dropped you on a hunch, just in case he was someone you wanted breathing." She frowns, hesitating for a moment, then asks, "Who is this guy, Giles? He came off as human, but he didn't handle himself like one. And he said he'd fought a Slayer."

Giles drew in a deep breath, sitting back down as if his legs had been cut out from under him. That message wasn't exactly urgent, but it wasn't a good one, either. Although at least Ivan wasn't calling in the debt he had said the Watchers owed him after that fiasco was over. A debt that hadn't been paid by the deaths of the next Watcher sent to Moscow, a year later.

"He did, though not as her enemy." Giles leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "It's a long story that I would prefer not to relate over the phone. I'll arrange a flight to Moscow as soon as possible, though I likely won't arrive until tomorrow morning. Don't confront Vanko tonight if he's out."

He knows she'll want to know why, and he doesn't know if he really wants to tell her just how dangerous he remembers Vanko being, or what he's heard of him since. Though if Spike knows the name, he can probably tell her some of it. The incident in Moscow that Ivan had referred to hadn't exactly been quiet, at least in the supernatural world.

"I'll keep Spike away from him," Faith promises. Which only increases the look of impending retribution in Spike's eyes - and that will likely prove much more fun than tangling with Vanko, especially as Giles wants the man alive. She smirks at her sire, then pretends she's ignoring him. "I think we'll stay in till you get here, though. Just to be on the safe side. Call us when you get to Moscow."

"I will." Giles pinches the bridge of his nose once more, before sitting up straight again. "Good luck keeping Spike in line until then." He hits the end call button on the phone, setting it back in its cradle before he closes his eyes, wondering just what this trip is going to turn into.

* * *

They're dozing when the phone rings, Faith sprawled out across Spike's chest and slipping in and out of sleep. She rolls over to grab it, batting Spike's hand away when he tries to reach for her. That wakes him the rest of the way, and he's sitting up even as she answers.

"Hello?"

"Giles?" Spike asks. She makes a face at him, and he smirks at her, unrepentant.

"Where are you staying?" Giles doesn't even ask why he can hear Spike in the background, though he worries about Faith's relationship with him. It's not the same sort of self-destructive nonsense that Buffy engaged in, but Spike's still dangerous to know, and for all that he's aware of Spike's ability to be highly protective of those he loves, Giles still worries for Faith.

He glances at the time again, and wonders for a moment just why he's actually answered Ivan's oblique summons so quickly. Until he reminds himself who the message came through, and that he worries more for Faith than for an old friend, however much he does extend that concern to Ivan.

"I'll flag down a cab to take me there." Even if he does have to hang on for dear life, and have a few years of that life scared out of him. At least he won't have to navigate the traffic himself.

"We could come get you," Faith offers, getting out of bed and starting to look for her clothes. She turns to mouth 'get dressed' at Spike, who rolls his eyes but does what he's told. "We have a car." They'd taken it out of the parking garage at Wolfram and Hart, and she'd been letting Spike drive it. "Supernatural reflexes are a good thing to have on your side in Moscow traffic."

Another item on things not to ask about, and Giles closes his eyes a moment, keeping a firm grip on his bag. "I'll wait for you, then." And hope that Ivan isn't watching for his arrival, or he's not entirely certain he'll be here when Faith and Spike arrive. He doesn't know how to predict Ivan, if he's ever really known. He'd thought he'd known before the 1990 incident, but either he'd never really known the Russian physicist, or something had changed then.

"We won't be long." Spike is looking for his boot, which is next to her foot. She throws it at his head, and he snatches it out of the air before it can hit him. Faith grins. "Give us half an hour, tops." She sends Spike's shirt after his boot as she hangs up the phone. "Come on, hurry up."

"I am hurrying," Spike protests. All the same, he picks up the pace, and it's not long before they're in the car and moving. Faith hadn't been exaggerating the benefits of vampiric speed and coordination when driving here. Spike cuts through the traffic like fangs through flesh, cutting off other drivers with reckless abandon. Faith rides with her feet on the dashboard, smoking cigarettes and listening to the radio play Russian hip hop, because Spike hates it. Death is easier than life ever had been, and sweeter, too.

Giles ends the call with a long-suffering sigh, and heads for the exit to the outside, ignoring the cabs as he watches for the slightly more insane vehicle that will no doubt be careening around the other cars when Spike and Faith arrive. And he's not disappointed when they do, fifteen minutes later. He thinks he might let Ivan have at them if they drive that way all the way back to the hotel, if only to exact a little retribution for the assault on his remaining sanity from all of them.

"How was your flight?" Faith asks, then slaps Spike on the arm hard enough to sting. "Slow down. Giles wouldn't do well in a car accident at these speeds." Spike eases up a little on the gas pedal, and reaches for his cigarettes, which turn out to be in his coat pocket, while Faith turns back to Giles.

"Sorry," she apologizes. Spike lights his cigarette and rolls his eyes.

That the ride in the car had begun with antics that would make the taxi drivers swear in admiration only makes Giles wince and keep a white-knuckled grip on his bag and the door. "Your apology is accepted, though if you'll refrain from such entertaining escapades while I am in the car, I would appreciate it," he says with a mildness that almost surprises him. Perhaps it's just that he's too tired to be truly upset. Or because he has vague plans for trouble later if they make him too discomfited.

"My flight was tolerable." The Council still has the resources to allow him to travel first-class, and he took perhaps unfair advantage of that fact. "Did you refrain from any further contact with Vanko since we spoke?"

"We hadn't so much as left the room until you called." Spike grins, and maneuvers the car around a lorry that's doing its best to block traffic. Faith swipes one of his cigarettes and looks sharply at him, so he slows down again.

At least he had that much reassurance, although it does mean he can't be entirely certain where Ivan currently is, if he's not in the same building that he'd been living in when Giles first met him. "Good." He'll tell them what he knows of Ivan when they're back at the hotel, and he's had a chance to stretch his legs. He might have traveled first-class, but it still means cramped legs after sitting still for so long, even if he's not as uncomfortable as he could be.

Spike reaches forward to fiddle with the radio. There's a punk movement in Russia that's not half bad - but Faith knocks his hand away.

"Knock it off," she says irritably. Her glare tells him that she knows he's trying to yank Giles' chain.

Giles doesn't particularly care what music is on, as his focus is turned inward at the moment now that it's safe, trying to organize his thoughts and to recall all he learned about Ivan in that year and a half that he'd been in and out of Moscow, the fall of the Soviet Union revealing where the Slayer had been Called, far from the reach of the Watchers Council at the time. Protected and helped by one young man who'd grown up in the same dreary block of apartments, and keeping the city's supernatural community remarkably wary - at least, that had been the official position of the Watchers Council, which hadn't been able to figure out how they could have been so good without even the slightest training from the Council.

"So who is this guy, Giles?" Faith asks, stealing one of Spike's cigarettes and watching her own lack of reflection in the side mirror. That's still kind of irritating, but she's gotten good at doing her make up without it.

"I'm not entirely certain." Giles draws in a deep breath, pulling himself back into the present. "He was an associate of the Slayer active between 1988 and 1990, and one of the few people she trusted. A fact the Watchers Council used to try to establish some control over the Slayer, and what they ultimately blamed for her death."

Ivan hadn't shown nearly the fury Giles had expected from him when he'd been told about that determination of the Council, not at first, but Giles has a strong suspicion that it was part of what drove him to work for Wolfram and Hart. And certainly contributed to the growth of his reputation among demons and vampires for being a dangerous man to cross, in parallel with his reputation in the criminal underworld for the same.

Spike makes a disgusted face. "Best thing that ever happened to the Watchers was the First," he says, and Faith, remembering Gwendolyn Post and Wesley in his early days, can't help but agree. "You'll have to tell him about that. Maybe it'll make him less hacked off at us."

Giles let a rueful smile cross his face. "Unlike myself, I don't think Vanko has ever entirely let go of his angry youth, whatever else has changed. Although at least he didn't kill either of you, though I expect you mentioned the Watchers Council?" Perhaps prison has tempered his rage somewhat, though Giles can't be entirely certain of it.

"At any rate, I doubt informing him of the fact the Watchers Council has been destroyed and rebuilt will incline him to nullify the debt he believes we owe him." And which Giles still doesn't know that he agrees with, for all the mistakes that the Watchers Council made in handling both Ivan and Kseniya almost twenty years ago.

"It may not make him inclined to forgive the debt," Spike allows, "but it will likely go a good ways towards assuring him that it'll be acknowledged. The old Council wouldn't even have done that."

"He never asked them to acknowledge it," Giles points out mildly. Ivan, from all he'd been able to tell, had intended to collect his debt regardless of the Council's willingness to admit there was one to be collected. Particularly since he'd started collecting with a death.

Spike waves a dismissive hand and cuts sharply around another lorry.

"You know what I meant, Rupert." This time it's a Mercedes he cuts off, the driver making a hand gesture that needs no translating. Spike returns it with interest before pulling off the road and in front of their hotel. He tosses the keys to the valet and tips the bellboy to leave Giles' luggage alone. He scoops the suitcase up himself instead.

"We booked you the room right next to ours," he says, walking through the hotel doors and towards the elevator, Faith trailing a few feet behind them.

Giles refrains from pointing out again that he doesn't think it will help with Ivan just to know everyone who might have been involved in the fiasco that resulted in Kseniya's death - save Giles himself, and he'd been arguing against the Council's attempts to manage the Slayer in the manner they were - is dead.

He waits instead until they're at the hotel, and Spike's provided him with something more mundane to respond to. "So long as you don't keep me awake at all hours of the morning, I think I can tolerate that." It's bad enough that he's been awake all night so that his flight would come in before the sun was up enough to cause problems for Spike and Faith.

Spike's smirk is just shy of obscene. "We'll try to keep the ruckus to a minimum. Both of us need to eat anyway." And after all that time indoors, they're also both itching to go *do* something.

"Do try not to cause too much trouble while you're out." Giles doesn't expect they won't cause any trouble - it's not in either of their natures to be unobtrusive - but so long as he doesn't hear about it from someone else before he hears about it from them, it will be enough. He stops at the front desk, checking in while his two companions wait, and gratefully takes the key card.

And perhaps later, while they're sleeping the afternoon away, he might be able to find Ivan on his own, and see just why that particular message was sent. Or what Ivan expected to get out of it.

"You're no fun," Spike tells him, before turning to Faith. "Come on, love. Things to kill, people to eat. You know the drill." She hooks her arm through the one he offers her, and gives Giles an apologetic smile before they slip out into the night.


End file.
